


It's A Panic Beacon, You Idiot

by EleanorC



Series: Fictober19 - Timtober2019 [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics)
Genre: Fictober 2019, Identity Reveal, Jason Todd is Red Hood, M/M, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Tim Drake is Red Robin, Timtober (DCU), jason was never robin, pre-relationship-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 15:27:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20876465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EleanorC/pseuds/EleanorC
Summary: Fictober19, Timtober2019 Day 2 - "Just follow me, I know the Area" and "Home".Red Robin is casing a crime scene when the little notification on the holographically projected interface built into his cowl pops up, telling him Red Hood has activated his panic beacon.It’s a first, so he throws one last glance at the scene, throws a tiny little camera to stick to the wall, and jumps out the window while pulling up the signal of the GPS tracker that should have come online the moment the other vigilante activated the beacon.AU where Jason was never Robin, but somehow managed to become Red Hood anyway.





	It's A Panic Beacon, You Idiot

**Author's Note:**

> Hi!
> 
> Not edited or beta'd. 
> 
> Tim and Jason are about the same age here (not really important, but still). 
> 
> Enjoy!

Red Robin is casing a crime scene when the little notification on the holographically projected interface built into his cowl pops up, telling him Red Hood has activated his panic beacon. 

It’s a first, so he throws one last glance at the scene, throws a tiny little camera to stick to the wall, and jumps out the window while pulling up the signal of the GPS tracker that should have come online the moment the other vigilante activated the beacon. 

He’s been working with Red Hood on and of for nearly three years. Back then, he was still in high school. He doesn’t know the other man’s identity, and Tim hasn’t shared either. Bruce doesn’t like it, but then, Bruce doesn’t like anything he hasn’t micromanaged himself, so he can’t really bring himself to care. 

Besides, ever since Bruce decided to let the replacement have his spot even after Tim (and Red Hood, but Bruce conveniently tends to forget he owes his life to the man who forcefully carved a place for himself in crime alley) rescued him from being lost in time, he doesn’t get a say in what Tim does and doesn’t do anymore. 

Bruce doesn’t see the difference between Tim replacing Dick, and Damian replacing Tim. 

It  _ is  _ different. Dick was done with Robin, Tim wasn’t. 

Tim had politely asked Dick if he minded if he became the new sidekick, hadn’t even considered becoming Robin until Dick gave him the suit (even if Tim had gone on to redesign it completely). Damian had simply taken Tim’s cape and tunic and gotten away with it. 

Half a year ago, just after they’d pulled of rescuing Batman together, he’d scraped together the courage to ask Red Hood for some way to contact each other in cases of emergency. 

He honestly hadn’t expected his proposal to be so easily accepted, and a few weeks later found Tim handing over both a GPS tracker with panic beacon function and the receiver of his own. 

The fact that Red Hood had used it both warms his heart at the implicated trust the other man has in him, and fills him with an all encompassing worry over his safety. 

He’s seen the type of shit Red Hood tends to deal with on his own, if he’s activated the panic beason, it’s bad. 

The streets and rooftops pass under him at a steady pace as he makes his way over to where the GPS tracker signals Red Hood’s location. It leads him to the Ace Chemicals building in the Bowery. 

To his utter surprise, he finds Red Hood on the roof, casually waiting for him. 

Because he expected to have to drag the man out of an ambush, or a fire, or a collapsing building, or something, he’s momentary taken aback. Then, he switches to hyper vigilance. 

Why did Red Hood call him here? Is he setting him up for a trap? 

Tim doesn’t want to think so, but there’s a little voice that sounds like Bruce in the back of his head saying;  _ I told you he wasn’t to be trusted.  _

There doesn’t appear to be anyone else nearby, though, and he decides to just go for it, and take his chances. 

Red Hood turns to him as soon as Tim lands, and while he’s fairly sure this  _ is _ the real Red Hood (he’s spent enough time with him to know his general build under all that armour), the way he carries himself is off. 

It’s tense in a way he’s never seen before, even when confronted with Batman. 

And let’s face it, the dislike between Red Hood and Batman is entirely mutual. Although he’s got no clue as to why Red Hood dislikes Batman so much. 

Point is, even when forced to work with Batman, Red Hood isn’t as tense as he is now. 

Tim knows something is truly wrong, the moment Red Hood raises his hands to lift the helmet off his head. 

They don’t do this. Tim has never lifted his cowl, and Red Hood has never taken his helmet off completely, despite the fact that he’s told the other man repeatedly that he looks ridiculous with just the mouth area removed while they’re eating. 

The both of them wear voice synthesizers, so they don’t even know what the other sounds like. 

A fact that will change soon, as Red Hood told him once his voice synthesizer is part of his helmet. 

He wants to say something, wants to stop the other vigilante from exposing himself like this, only to realise the man wears a domino mask under the helmet. 

Huh, bruce would appreciate that level of paranoia. 

Once the helmet is completely removed, Tim is temporarily distracted by the black curls and strong jawline that feel familiar before noticing something much more important. 

Red Hood is pale, clammy, and shaking. 

He also seems to have trouble breathing. 

“Hood?” Tim asks cautiously.

Red Hood breaks into a bright smile, and the tense posture evaporates into a boneless one that’s possibly even more disturbing. The Jury’s still out on that one.

“Babybiiirrd,” he drawls, and Tim is surprised to note that his voice is familiar despite the fact he’s only ever heard it through a filter before. 

“You injured, Hood?” 

The other man shakes his head vigorously before grimacing and then shrugging. 

Right, that’s not much use. 

“Why’d you activate your beacon?” 

The corners of the man’s full lips pulling down grabs his focus, and he needs to shake himself out of it. 

Bad Tim. This is not the time to ogle your unfairly-attractive-sometimes-work-partner. 

“I did?” Red Hood asks, before looking at his hand, where he’s still holding the activation switch. 

A few seconds pass in which Tim decides that this version of his friend (they can be called friends at this point, right?) is creeping him the fuck out. 

“Oh right! I did!” The vapid smile is back, and he’s not sure whether to take a step closer to better check his friend’s condition, or take one back in self preservation. “But don’t worry, little bird, I’m okay now.” 

Yeah, nope. Something is up. If he didn’t know any better, he’d say Red Hood was—

“Are you drunk?” he asks. 

“Wah? No!” A short pause. “I feel sorta drunk, though. Hehe, that’s funny, I don’t remember drinking.” 

Oh god. This is gonna end up giving Tim a major headache, isn’t it? Worry for his friend wins out, and he steps a bit closer. 

There are no visible wounds on Red Hood other than the usual wear and tear that comes with Gotham vigilante life. His visible weapons are all in place. 

“Do you remember why you thought you needed help?” 

The question brings an intense look of concentration to Red Hood’s face, visible despite the domino. It’s clear he’s trying to help Tim figure things out, despite his obvious trouble thinking. 

“I think…” he stops, and turns towards the north, where the industrial area and harbor lie. “I think I ran into some A-listers while busting up what I thought was a regular drug smuggling ring.”

Oh no. 

Drugs and A-listers in one sentence is never a good sign. 

“Which ones?” It’s more of a demand than a question, Tim knows that, but Red Hood responds to it with more focus than he had any other question so far. 

“Ivy,” he says right away, “and Scarecrow.”

A sense of dread overcomes Tim. Not those two. He doesn’t want to be forced to bring the rest of the bats into this. He doesn’t  _ like _ the other bats right now. 

“Were they working together?” 

Red Hood sways on his feet a bit, and Tim take the last few steps to catch and support him. 

“I don’t think so?” 

Okay. Tim thinks he can work with this. 

But then Red Hood groans and grabs his head, and then starts giggling. 

“Hood, this is very important, so look at me.” Tim has enough experience wearing a domino himself to know when someone is looking at him through one, and he waits until he firmly has the other man’s attention. “Which one of them drugged you?” 

That has to be the explanation, though he can’t imagine this being the effect of anything Dr. Crane cooked up, unless the man screwed up royally with his newest formula. 

Problem is, it doesn’t really feel like any of Miss Isley’s creations, either. 

“Both of them?” 

Fuck. 

In a fraction of a second, Tim has pulled off one of his gloves, and is checking Red Hood’s pulse. 

He doesn’t bother counting it, knows right away that it’s way too high. He also notices Red Hood is burning up. 

“Come with me,” he says, and starts pulling Red Hood in the direction of one of his better equipped safehouses in Newtown. 

The other man doesn’t seem very keen on coming, though. 

“Where are we going?” Now he sounds like a rebellious child, and Tim is getting real tired of the mood swings real fast. 

“Somewhere I can analyse what chemicals are messing with your system so I can do something about it before your heart gives out.” 

It’s not a very tactful way of putting it, and Tim expects Red Hood to be a bit cowed by the implication he might die. 

Instead, he starts beaming again. 

“Oh, then we need to go that way!” He says, and starts pulling Tim towards the south-west instead. 

“Hood!” Tim protests. “I need my equipment!”

“Yeah, yeah.” Now the bastard sounds drunk again. “I know this rich kid who has enough chemistry gizmos to make even you drool. It’ll be  _ fine _ .” 

Even in his current state, Red Hood outmatches him in brute strength, and he doesn’t want to risk exacerbating his condition by fighting him, so in the end, he goes with it. 

As they traverse Gotham by air, Tim has time to think about some of the things he’d dismissed in the earlier stress of finding out what happened. 

The thing that bothers him most is just how familiar Red Hood looks and sounds. How at ease Tim feels around the man. 

After a while something else is starting to bother him more. They’re slowing in the Coventry. Tim thinks he’d know if there was some rich kid with a lot of chemistry tech living here. they’re only a few blocks from his home, after all. 

“Where are we going?” he asks. 

“Don’t worry about it, just follow me, I know the area.”

“Hood. This is  _ my _ patrol zone, I’d know if you were here enough to know the area.”

Red Hood lands on a rooftop and stops. He sends a cheeky smile Tim’s way, but he thinks the man actually looks a lot worse than before they started moving. “How do you know I don’t come here without the mask?”

He doesn’t, and that doesn’t matter right now, so he moves on to the next question. 

“So who’s this kid, and how do you know he’s trustworthy enough to let him help in this situation?” Tim asks. 

“His name’s Tim Drake,” Red Hood answers casually, “you’ve probably heard of him.”

Oh fuck. 

They can’t go to Tim Drake’s home.  _ He’s _ Tim Drake, he’s not home right now. 

Tim wants to hit himself in the head. He should have realized  _ he’s _ the rich kid with the tech. 

“And of course I know he’s trustworthy. Timmy wouldn’t be my best bud if he wasn’t.” 

It’s like an illusion of glass shatters around him. 

The voice. The face. Even the build and the smile. 

Of course he knows them. 

They belong to the only person he lets get away with calling him Timmy, after all. 

Jason. 

His closest friend, who he’s had a low-key crush on since high school. Who always manages to get himself in trouble with his love for extreme sports. 

Who has been lying to Tim for years. 

Shock is quickly followed by indignation and then anger, but he doesn’t get a chance to act on it, for that’s the moment that Jason collapses. 

-

The first thing Jason registers when he wakes up is the headache. It’s been a long time since he’s drank enough to merit a hangover this bad was months ago, but that’s what it feels like. A splitting headache, a dry rotten taste in his mouth, and the feeling that if he even tries to sit up, he’ll be running for the toilet.

The strange thing is that he doesn’t even remember going out for drinks. 

In fact, it takes a bit of digging to find his most recent memory through the foggy jumble that the day before has become (at least, he really hopes it’s just been a day). 

Let’s see. It was a Wednesday. He had classes at college in the morning, then has lunch with Tim. Did an afternoon shift at the bookstore. Went to the library for coursework. Then he did some digging on the case he wanted to tackle later that night while eating dinner…

And that’s where is gets a little iffy. 

He  _ thinks _ he tinkered with his suit for a bit. Definitely checked in with the girls. Had a meeting with one of the drug runners he condones. Took his share for the month?

Maybe. 

The harbor. He remembers going to bust up that new drug ring at the old harbor by amusement mile. 

Ivy? Scarecrow?

A needle in his neck and a face full of powder that the filters in his mask did nothing to stop. 

Then nothing. 

Jason surges upright in the bed he’s in, his headache intensifying when he opens his eyes, and his stomach churning as expected. 

He has a split second to register he’s not in some sort of dungeon or tied to the bed before he realises his stomach  _ really _ doesn’t appreciate the sudden movement. 

He’s saved a trip a the closest toilet as a small bucket is shoved into his arms, but he’s too busy throwing up to care who gave it to him. 

The daylight is blinding, and there are sharp flashes of pain shooting through his temples, so he closes his eyes and leans on the bucket after he’s done turning his stomach inside out. 

The bucket is taken way, but Jason’s desire to complain about the loss evaporates the moment a glass is pushed into his hands instead. 

He doesn’t drink straight away, takes a moment to center himself. 

“Jason?” A soft voice asks, and he turns towards the source, opening his eyes carefully. 

The light still feels bright, but it’s not actually that bad, just the light of the early morning streaming in through the window. 

The room is surprisingly familiar upon second glance, as he recognizes it as Tim’s guest bedroom. 

Tim himself sits in a chair beside the bed, but he has no clue how to even begin deciphering his expression right now. 

How’d he end up here?

He starts asking, but Tim stops him with a firm shake of his head. 

“Rinse,” he says, pointing at the glass in Jason’s hand. 

His tone leaves no room for argument, and Jason suddenly understands how a little kid like him managed to run a company at age eighteen. 

Tim helps him rinse by holding up the bucket for him to spit in, then gives him another glass. 

“Sip.” Another order. 

He’s starting to think his friend is mad at him for something. With the major gap in his memories, he just might be. 

Wouldn’t be the first time for Jason to majorly fuck up while under the influence of something.

When he’s drank half the glass of water, Tim takes it so he can help him sit back against the pillows instead of just sitting up, before speaking up again. 

“What do you remember?” 

Jason open his mouth to answer, only to realise he can’t tell Tim about most of it. 

Shit. 

“Not much,” he ends up saying. It’s not a complete lie, he’s got a feeling he’s missing all the important parts. 

When he reaches for the glass again Tim hands it to him and then takes something out of his pocket to start fiddling with it. 

He doesn’t pay it much attention, he’s closed his eyes again. 

“Not much isn’t nothing,” Tim notes, and there is a definite annoyed edge to his tone. 

“I think I got drugged,” Jason admits, to which Tim hums non-committedly. 

“How’d I end up here?” he asks, when Tim doesn’t say anything further. 

Tim takes in a deep breath, not a good sign in Jason’s experience, as it usually means he’s trying to calm himself down. 

“You were dragged in here, unconscious, and drugged.” 

_ What? _

He was Red Hood when he was drugged! He’s sure of it. How would anyone know to bring him to Tim? 

No wait bigger problem, had they changed him out of the armour before bringing him in?

He sneaks a peak down at himself, but he’s wearing one of his old worn shirts that Tim nicked off him a while ago along with the sweats he’d forgotten the last time they did movie night. 

Still, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t wearing the armour when he got here. 

Tim’s odd behavior is starting to make more sense now, and the object he was fiddling with suddenly becomes more important.

Slowly, with great reluctance, Jason turns to look at his best friend. 

Or maybe former best friend, as Tim’s got his domino in his hands. 

“Fuck,” he breaths. 

Tim snorts. “That was pretty much my reaction as well.” 

Silence falls, as Jason tries to come to terms with someone knowing his secret identity. It doesn’t work very well. 

“So,” Tim starts talking in that no nonsense command voice of his. 

“Now that we have established I know about this.” He waves the mask lightly. “Care to tell me how much you  _ really _ remember?”

Ah, yeah. His little Timmy is very much pissed at him. 

And not in that cute, riled up chipmunk way he does when he doesn’t actually care either. 

“It’s really not that much, to be honest,” he answers truthfully. “I went out to do my patrol, busted up a drug ring I’d been planning to take on for a while. And then it gets a bit fuzzy, but I think Scarecrow managed to get a syringe between my chest armour and my helmet, and while I was trying to get out of there before the fear toxin hit, Poison Ivy blew some of that date-rape dust of her’s in my face. Stuff went right through the filters in my mask.”

Tim hums again, but this time in a way that makes Jason think it matches with what he knows of the situation. 

“Anything else?” he asks. 

Jason thinks about it, and at first he thinks that’s it. 

But then something else pops up. 

He remembers thinking he messed up. Bad. 

He remembers fishing that little switch he’d promised himself never to use, but had accepted anyway because he liked the idea of his Babybird calling him if he was in trouble, out of his pocket. 

Jason swears violently enough to make Tim jump in his seat a little. 

“Tim,” he says, putting as much urgency in his voice as he can. “Where’s my communicator?” 

The boy just frowns. 

“Why?” he asks. 

“Because I pressed my ‘I-fucked-up-big-time button’, and knowing Red Robin, he’ll run himself into the ground looking for me if I don’t let him know I’m safe.” 

Tim gives him a very unimpressed look at that. 

“Who do you think dragged your sorry ass into my house last night?” He asks, and then grumbles. “And it’s a panic beacon, you idiot.”

Oh. Right. 

No. Wait a minute.

“You know Red Robin well enough that he’d bring me here?” 

Tim smiles that infuriatingly secretive smile of his. 

“You could say that. But  _ you’re  _ the one who wanted to come here _ . _ ”

Jason huffs, and ignores the second part of that statement. It could very well be true.

“I knew there had to be some truth to those rumors about you Wayne’s backing the bats.” 

Tim doesn’t answer him, just keeps smiling. 

“So, what happened?” Jason asks. There’s no way Red Robin didn’t update Tim on the situation. 

Tim sighs. 

“You got a double dose of drugs. Ivy and Scarecrow. The chemicals reacted with each other, giving unexpected results. At first you described it as feeling drunk, and were acting pretty euphoric, if a tad unpredictable,” he recites, “Later you started running a fever and sweating. Your heart rate was elevated. By a lot. Just before we got here, you fainted.” 

Tim lifts his tablet from where it’s resting in the windowsill, and opens it up to what looks like a patient chart. 

“The combination of drugs was causing you to produce an insane amount of adrenaline, and pull out all your sugar reserves. A little longer and your heart could have given out. I managed to stabilize you.” 

Jason feels a bit shell shocked at the revelation of just how close he’d gotten to losing his life. 

“Thanks,” he manages. 

Tim’s expression finally shifts to something he recognizes. “Any time, Jay.”

After that, Tim starts messing around with his IV, takes another blood sample, and eventually brings Jason something simple to try eating. 

It’s not until after Jason’s done with the plain broth that he notices Tim is fiddling with his domino again. 

“Were you ever going to tell me?” He asks, and Jason thinks he already knows the answer. 

“No.” 

“That’s fair,” Tim sighs, “You started after that stuff with your moms happened, right?” 

“Yeah...” 

That had been a difficult time. Not only had he found out Catherine Todd wasn’t his real mom, he also learned that she’d been killed by a bad batch of drugs that contained something nasty made by the Joker. To top it off, his biological mom turned out to be a corrupt doctor, and was being blackmailed and eventually killed by the same man. Jason had only barely gotten away with his life. 

“I want to be mad,” Tim says, “I  _ was _ mad when you started talking about your ‘best friend Timmy’ all of a sudden and it clicked. But then you fainted on me, and I had to haul your heavy ass the rest of the way, and I realised I have absolutely no right to be mad, because I’ve been doing this way longer than you, and I wasn’t planning on telling you, either.” 

There is so much to unpack in that statement that Jason isn’t quite sure that Tim is saying what he thinks he’s saying. 

And a grumbled little thing Tim said just a little while ago comes back to him. 

_ It’s a panic beacon, you idiot.  _

How many times has he had that discussion? How many times has his night-time partner done that same angry chipmunk impression that he adores so much in his best friend?

“Babybird?” he asks, tentatively. 

Tim sighs and runs a hand through his hair. 

“I still don’t get why you call me that.” 

Fuck. 


End file.
